What? That was a whole month? Already? All I remember is about three or four hours worth of screaming, all of which seemed to be happening at about three in the morning. I may have slept for the rest of it. Either that, or my brain isn't working properly because of sleep deprivation. Although that could just be the sleep deprivation talking. Apologies, one paragraph in and I'm already rambling. There's too much going on in my head to be coherent, and all of it is the equivalent of insane monkeys trapped in a cupboard and biting each other.
The baby's name is C, after some discussion. I realise that my stylistic use of capitals isn't terribly helpful here, but there you go. Even F took this on board after a couple of weeks - she's not much of a one for naming things, usually. Her rabbit is called Kanin ('rabbit' in Swedish, although BunBun in English at least), the baby doll C gave her as a getting born present is called Baby. "The baby must love me very much," she said, on getting this last item.
(She has also, in passing, picked up V's tendency to refer to stuff she's temporarily forgotten the name of as 'thingy thingy', as in 'hand me that thingy thingy over there'. F uses this for anything she doesn't know the name of yet, which covers a lot of ground. If I ask her what she's doing in our room after a long, suspicious silence, and get "I'm going to put the thingy thingy in the thingy thingy" as an answer, it doesn't really leave me much wiser.)
I vaguely recall the three months or so after F was born. These shadowy memories are only present because I wrote about them at the time, in this very blog. Without that, I'd have nothing. Unravelled care sleeves and nothing else. Quite a few parents of multiple kids told us during the pregnancy that having more than one kid doesn't make a big difference, it's not really much harder. This can be put down to the same brain damage, it's utter cobblers.
It's no more worrying, that's fair. I'm not suffering extra night terrors as I imagine roaming bears devouring my young, for example, in the same way I did when F was born. I have a rough idea of what's normal for an infant, which way up to hold it, how to change a nappy without barfing, that kind of thing. So I'm no more stressed than I was before.
I'm doubly exhausted, though, which helps nobody. V and I grouse and snap at each other as we lurch through the days, each sourly jealous of any rest the other gets (at least, I speak for myself here - V may be too tired to care). Everything feels like it's always your turn to do it, even if it's clearly not. This is particuarly irrational in my case when it comes to breast feeding.
C is sleeping in two to four hour bursts, mostly. Broken nights are tough. Getting pooped on regularly during them is even tougher. C can poo clear across a room, in a stream like a WWII flamethrower. She's sprayed me out in public. She's replastered the bathroom at 0400. I want to wear a butcher's apron when I go to change her, but I'm afraid it might send the wrong message as a parent.
She sleeps between us in the bed, she's made it very clear she doesn't like being alone. So I've been woken by a stream of milky vomit being deposited into beard in the middle of the night. It's a sadly depleted beard, I had to trim it for a job earlier in the month. This is a lucky escape, I think. It was rancid enough without yoghurt stalactites being added to the mix.
As F is now on her summer holidays, we can't really rest while C sleeps in the day, as we could when F was little. Instead, we cook unsauced pasta one more time because that's what F wants for lunch. Or pretend we're going to clean the house properly ever in our lives again, that kind of thing. Or sit on the floor and play Playmobile People Go to Hospital.
I do, at least. F is still very much the Pappagris. V isn't allowed to help, show affection or (sometimes) talk without permission. Actually, neither am I, but I'm also the go-to parent for any problems that might be ongoing. This is tiring, even if it's also endearing. V only gets the tiring end of that stick.
F is very fond of her little sister, at least. Hugs and kisses all the time, especially when C is asleep. Screaming Ambush is one of her favourite games right now, that's another great one to play with baby during afternoon nap time. C doesn't mind in the least, she's clearly interested in F already. She'll scream blue murder if I can't warm up a bottle in under two minutes, but F can bellow 'YAAAARGH' at her out of nowhere and she just gazes intently, as though filing it away for later use.
F's favourite bit at the moment is nappy change. She knows babies get angry when you change them, so she comes to help sooth C. Mostly by shouting "No!" at her to try and defuse the situation, but the intent is there. She's religious in her attendance, though, perhaps because of a renewed interest in bowel movements.
Yes, we're doing potty training again. Because we're bloody idiots, and not cleaning up enough crap at the moment, clearly. Some mild successes so far, after a limited start which needed three dress changes in twenty minutes. F has taken on board that grown ups don't wear nappies, but is quite cross about it. Doesn't see the point, maybe.
She insisted on following me to the toilet this afternoon to watch. "What are you doing now?" she asked. Well, I'm sitting uncomfortably whilst waiting to poo, thanks. How are you? And then came one of those dreaded questions.
"What's that hanging down underneath daddy's tummy?"
Say penis. Go on, daddy, say it. It's not a bad word, it's an anatomical label. Nothing to be ashamed of, not even yours, and a usefully clinical term in later life. May as well start with it.
"Er, well, it's a willy."
Not even 'my willy', you massive copout. Just somebody's willy, that happens to be hanging about under your paunch. It just wandered in here and hopped into your lap, did it? Or maybe you're looking after it for a friend. Idiot.
F considered this intelligence and then laughed. "Ha ha! It's funny," she said, and then wandered off. So much for pride.
At least the name has stuck with her. Names in general, in fact. Now C is offical nomenclature, she's started naming her toys. This has begun with her smurfs. She's called one of them Adolf. Okay, Adolf after Starke Adolf, the strongman in Pippi Longstrump, but all the same, it's not an auspicious start.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Mothers' Day 3/3
Sunday the 31st, B was born.
(B still stands for Baby, we're still at an impasse on names, which means F is currently right after all - she's being saying it would just be called Baby for months.)
Just to add dramatic weight to that, it was Swedish Mothers' Day. It was also Uncle J's birthday, F's Godmother L's wedding anniversary. Brooke Shields was born on this day, people, it has cosmic significance.
June 1st, we got the news through to F.
We did phone her several times on the Sunday. In Mormor's care, she'd gone out to Lek och Buslandet, a soft play area. We got to hear Aunty M asking her to come to the phone, and we got to hear the screamed response ("NO!") several times, and that was it. However exciting a new sibling is, it isn't a trampoline. There is no comparison.
But she did understand. We've been explaining it to her for ages, and she's interested and excited. If her priorities aren't quite ours, that's okay. She is only two and a half. Even so, she understood about the baby. When I woke her in the middle of the night on Saturday to explain that she had to go to Mormor's house now because the baby was ready to come out, she was confused.
"No, Daddy, babies must grow and grow and grow first," she told me, rather pityingly.
"Well, it's done that already, and now it's ready to come out," I said.
"Pop?" she said, because that's the sound effect we do at the relevant stage in her book. It's a good book, as kids' books go, but the pictured bursting amniotic sac does look like a cheery balloon. It's been hard to know how much F has taken on board, and not entirely reassuring to discover she thinks childbirth and Cheggers make the same noise.
"Yes, pop," I said. V threw me dark glances. "We're going in Mormor's car," I added, because F was still dubious about going anywhere with a man with such a poor grasp of the basics of partuition.
"Let's go!" she said brightly, hopping out of bed. She likes cars.
And then suddenly it was Monday afternoon, and I was waiting with her downstairs from the maternity ward. V was feeding B, and I was trying to prepare F for her first encounter with her new little sister. I'd done this in three stages, which I'd like to record here as a template for all parents:
When Fathers' Day rolls around again, I may go presentless.
"Here's your little sister," we told F, as V came out of the lift.
And she jumped up and down and laughed, and looked at B's tiny pink toes, and wanted to hold her hands and hold her up she could teach her to walk, and told us that babies could only sleep and eat and poop, and everything else she's learnt from her book. All retained, all understood, and all very happy.
V and B should be home before this post airs. I don't doubt F's joy will get patchy in places. Hell, I'm sure V's and mine will - I dimly remember the nappy-ridden early days of this very blog, and I am in no hurry to repeat them.
But we will, and we'll find something shiny and worthwhile in amongst all the crap, as one always does in life, and F will be helping us do it, just as she does every single day.
(B still stands for Baby, we're still at an impasse on names, which means F is currently right after all - she's being saying it would just be called Baby for months.)
Just to add dramatic weight to that, it was Swedish Mothers' Day. It was also Uncle J's birthday, F's Godmother L's wedding anniversary. Brooke Shields was born on this day, people, it has cosmic significance.
June 1st, we got the news through to F.
We did phone her several times on the Sunday. In Mormor's care, she'd gone out to Lek och Buslandet, a soft play area. We got to hear Aunty M asking her to come to the phone, and we got to hear the screamed response ("NO!") several times, and that was it. However exciting a new sibling is, it isn't a trampoline. There is no comparison.
But she did understand. We've been explaining it to her for ages, and she's interested and excited. If her priorities aren't quite ours, that's okay. She is only two and a half. Even so, she understood about the baby. When I woke her in the middle of the night on Saturday to explain that she had to go to Mormor's house now because the baby was ready to come out, she was confused.
"No, Daddy, babies must grow and grow and grow first," she told me, rather pityingly.
"Well, it's done that already, and now it's ready to come out," I said.
"Pop?" she said, because that's the sound effect we do at the relevant stage in her book. It's a good book, as kids' books go, but the pictured bursting amniotic sac does look like a cheery balloon. It's been hard to know how much F has taken on board, and not entirely reassuring to discover she thinks childbirth and Cheggers make the same noise.
"Yes, pop," I said. V threw me dark glances. "We're going in Mormor's car," I added, because F was still dubious about going anywhere with a man with such a poor grasp of the basics of partuition.
"Let's go!" she said brightly, hopping out of bed. She likes cars.
And then suddenly it was Monday afternoon, and I was waiting with her downstairs from the maternity ward. V was feeding B, and I was trying to prepare F for her first encounter with her new little sister. I'd done this in three stages, which I'd like to record here as a template for all parents:
- Bought her a Kinder Surprise containing a toy car that in turn contained a toy plane, both of which represented a significant choking hazard for a newborn
- Fed her the chocolate egg so she got hyperactive and then pooped herself vigorously
- Dropped one of her shoes on her face while changing her so that she got a fat lip
When Fathers' Day rolls around again, I may go presentless.
"Here's your little sister," we told F, as V came out of the lift.
And she jumped up and down and laughed, and looked at B's tiny pink toes, and wanted to hold her hands and hold her up she could teach her to walk, and told us that babies could only sleep and eat and poop, and everything else she's learnt from her book. All retained, all understood, and all very happy.
V and B should be home before this post airs. I don't doubt F's joy will get patchy in places. Hell, I'm sure V's and mine will - I dimly remember the nappy-ridden early days of this very blog, and I am in no hurry to repeat them.
But we will, and we'll find something shiny and worthwhile in amongst all the crap, as one always does in life, and F will be helping us do it, just as she does every single day.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Mother's Day 2/3
Room number ten in the delivery suite, Östra Sjukhuset, has seen some heavy use over the years. Much of it by us.
Some twist of luck got us back to the exact same place that F was born in, two and half years ago. I was looking out of the windows at the same tired portacabins that still seemed like a temporary solution for building works, with the same moss and permapuddles on their asphalt roofs. No sprinkles of light snow this time. The Gothenburg summer may be crap, but there are limits.
Once we'd got over the deja vu, installed V and spread our stuff over the chairs and window ledges, I went straight to sleep.
I'm a very supportive husband, okay? I wanted to help V relax, so I set a good example. If she wanted to squeeze my hand during her labour, I felt having hands as limp as a stress ball would be helpful. And okay, she might have been working full time through the labour to support our family whilst carrying another whopping baby, but I was tired too. I had to stay up late writing this blog, for example. About once a month. So I deserve my rest.
I'm only mostly joking, is the sad thing. I wasn't as stressed about this pregnancy, partly because it almost never quite felt as real. Some of that was about it being unexpected, some of it was knowing a lot more about what to expect. Some of it was even that I speak a lot more Swedish this time, and wasn't trying to guess if the midwife just said 'twins' or not.
And reading that back to myself, I just want to clarify that 'not being stressed' isn't the same as 'not being fussed' or 'not giving a stuff'. I gave a big stuffy fuss about it. I was worried and apprehensive and in partial denial about potential complications, and all the rest of the horrific gnawing worry that accompanies parenting. Or that is the entirety of parenting, if you want to be negative about it. At no point are you not worried. There is always something to fret over, some dark doom waiting to encompass you. Something real and plausible and all too nearby. I get that, I have the fear. I have it right now as I type, I certainly had it in spades in Room 10, a room only a single digit away from being filled with rat-in-your-face hats and uncomfortable truths about human nature and jackboots.
I just did all of that stressing while asleep. In a really uncomfortable chair that's given me a really bad back. I'm also a victim here, let's not forget.
V was amazing. She powered through labour in what felt like no time, and made it look relatively easy. Even compared to being asleep in a chair. I managed to wake up for the last couple of hours, and saw a lovely fuzzy purple creature arriving. She's got spiky red-blond hair, same colour as V, but no name yet. You never really know how worried you are until it all dissolves in a wash of love for your wife and new and existing daughters.
This was Sunday, a few days ago (this bag of news is entirely catless, the news that we have a second daughter arrived on Facebook before we managed to leave the hospital). However advanced F's iPad skills are, however, she can't use Facebook yet. So there was someone who was yet to find out.
Some twist of luck got us back to the exact same place that F was born in, two and half years ago. I was looking out of the windows at the same tired portacabins that still seemed like a temporary solution for building works, with the same moss and permapuddles on their asphalt roofs. No sprinkles of light snow this time. The Gothenburg summer may be crap, but there are limits.
Once we'd got over the deja vu, installed V and spread our stuff over the chairs and window ledges, I went straight to sleep.
I'm a very supportive husband, okay? I wanted to help V relax, so I set a good example. If she wanted to squeeze my hand during her labour, I felt having hands as limp as a stress ball would be helpful. And okay, she might have been working full time through the labour to support our family whilst carrying another whopping baby, but I was tired too. I had to stay up late writing this blog, for example. About once a month. So I deserve my rest.
I'm only mostly joking, is the sad thing. I wasn't as stressed about this pregnancy, partly because it almost never quite felt as real. Some of that was about it being unexpected, some of it was knowing a lot more about what to expect. Some of it was even that I speak a lot more Swedish this time, and wasn't trying to guess if the midwife just said 'twins' or not.
And reading that back to myself, I just want to clarify that 'not being stressed' isn't the same as 'not being fussed' or 'not giving a stuff'. I gave a big stuffy fuss about it. I was worried and apprehensive and in partial denial about potential complications, and all the rest of the horrific gnawing worry that accompanies parenting. Or that is the entirety of parenting, if you want to be negative about it. At no point are you not worried. There is always something to fret over, some dark doom waiting to encompass you. Something real and plausible and all too nearby. I get that, I have the fear. I have it right now as I type, I certainly had it in spades in Room 10, a room only a single digit away from being filled with rat-in-your-face hats and uncomfortable truths about human nature and jackboots.
I just did all of that stressing while asleep. In a really uncomfortable chair that's given me a really bad back. I'm also a victim here, let's not forget.
V was amazing. She powered through labour in what felt like no time, and made it look relatively easy. Even compared to being asleep in a chair. I managed to wake up for the last couple of hours, and saw a lovely fuzzy purple creature arriving. She's got spiky red-blond hair, same colour as V, but no name yet. You never really know how worried you are until it all dissolves in a wash of love for your wife and new and existing daughters.
This was Sunday, a few days ago (this bag of news is entirely catless, the news that we have a second daughter arrived on Facebook before we managed to leave the hospital). However advanced F's iPad skills are, however, she can't use Facebook yet. So there was someone who was yet to find out.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Mothers' Day 1/3
My family is over from the UK! And Malaysia. International clan, the Hoggs these days, so a full family get-together is a pretty rare event.
F was very pleased to meet her family from abroad. After the first rather suspicious meeting, where she said no a lot and went off to play alone, she was happily sprawled on her Uncle P's knee for an endless repetition of a tickling rhyme.
New one on me, that. New one on F too. She's just starting to get back into trying new things, after several months of adamant repetition of routines.
We had a big family meal out on Saturday night at a good steak place. F was excited about this until we got there and it turned out that 'eating at a restaurant' translated as 'sitting at a table being boring'. She almost liked the salad bar, because it was arranged a little bit like her favourite pick'n'mix sweet shop. But a lame version, where the broccoli wasn't even gummi. Only swift production of mummy's iPad saved the evening from becoming a tantrum.
And even then, her eyeline gradually emerged from Youtube videos about playdoh as she realised everyone seemed to be having fun without her. By the end of the night, she was running up and down a row of benches with Uncle D at one end, howling with delight. Swedes don't do howling babies in restaurants all that much, they're too reserved. The plaited family at the next table would have looked horrified, except that to display the emotion would have been to admit that something was wrong. So kudos to them.
We went home, put F and the super pregnant and tired V to bed, then I went out to the pub to meet most of the others and watch the cup final. Was it a cup final? I don't know, football isn't really my thing. Arsenal Villa were playing, I think, possibly against United. United Airlines? United Arab Emirates? United Nations? Google hasn't helped me here. Anyway, Fifteen seconds after arriving and greeting the others, my phone went.
V's waters had broken, please could I come home again.
F was very pleased to meet her family from abroad. After the first rather suspicious meeting, where she said no a lot and went off to play alone, she was happily sprawled on her Uncle P's knee for an endless repetition of a tickling rhyme.
Dot dot
Line line
Spider crawling up your spine
Tight squeeze
Light breeze
Now you've got the shiveries
New one on me, that. New one on F too. She's just starting to get back into trying new things, after several months of adamant repetition of routines.
We had a big family meal out on Saturday night at a good steak place. F was excited about this until we got there and it turned out that 'eating at a restaurant' translated as 'sitting at a table being boring'. She almost liked the salad bar, because it was arranged a little bit like her favourite pick'n'mix sweet shop. But a lame version, where the broccoli wasn't even gummi. Only swift production of mummy's iPad saved the evening from becoming a tantrum.
And even then, her eyeline gradually emerged from Youtube videos about playdoh as she realised everyone seemed to be having fun without her. By the end of the night, she was running up and down a row of benches with Uncle D at one end, howling with delight. Swedes don't do howling babies in restaurants all that much, they're too reserved. The plaited family at the next table would have looked horrified, except that to display the emotion would have been to admit that something was wrong. So kudos to them.
We went home, put F and the super pregnant and tired V to bed, then I went out to the pub to meet most of the others and watch the cup final. Was it a cup final? I don't know, football isn't really my thing. Arsenal Villa were playing, I think, possibly against United. United Airlines? United Arab Emirates? United Nations? Google hasn't helped me here. Anyway, Fifteen seconds after arriving and greeting the others, my phone went.
V's waters had broken, please could I come home again.
Monday, May 25, 2015
Nothing to Report
No news on gender, weight, name, etc, etc - none of that. The baby is still dormant, by which I mean it's taken a vow of restlessness which V is obliged to go along with. Occasionally it kicks her hard enough in the middle of the night that she kicks out as well, like some kind of giant puppet. So I get kicked by proxy. Nobody wins in this arrangement.
Not much to write about over the last month, then, as the days are increasingly full of waiting for its arrival. Plenty of preparing instead. Some of it is mental prep, lying around doing nothing at any opportunity as if stocking up on rest and sleep might remotely work.
The rest of the preparation is shopping. Blankets so tiny I cannot believe F ever fitted inside one. An assortment of plastic teats, straps, rings and bottles. Hilariously overpriced toys. We spent some time today trying to pick out a doll for F to play with, the present with which we'll try to assuage her inevitable attention jealousy.
"Which one of these do you like?" we asked her.
"I buy the baby new clothes!" she told us proudly, ignoring both dolls and holding up a toy shopping basket before loading it up with doll outfits from the rack. Doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl, then, as long as you can use it as an excuse to go shopping.
We got a new sofa, so mummy has a place to sprawl during feeding sessions or general exhaustion. F went from being very excited about the new sofa to being very excited about her new sofa to being very excited about her new trampoline over the course of an hour. Once she'd split chocolate on it, she had clearly taken it for granted and stopped talking about it altogether.
Still hard to gage F's understanding of the baby. We read her a book about a new baby arriving in a family today, which she listened to with close interest. "Did you like that book, Freja?"
"That mummy had no clothes on," she said, rather concerned. Still on the clothes, then. Priorities all sorted.
James' beard remains well. The vistigial remnants of James are still lodged amidst its proud roots, and it hopes to soon move on to pastures new.
Not much to write about over the last month, then, as the days are increasingly full of waiting for its arrival. Plenty of preparing instead. Some of it is mental prep, lying around doing nothing at any opportunity as if stocking up on rest and sleep might remotely work.
The rest of the preparation is shopping. Blankets so tiny I cannot believe F ever fitted inside one. An assortment of plastic teats, straps, rings and bottles. Hilariously overpriced toys. We spent some time today trying to pick out a doll for F to play with, the present with which we'll try to assuage her inevitable attention jealousy.
"Which one of these do you like?" we asked her.
"I buy the baby new clothes!" she told us proudly, ignoring both dolls and holding up a toy shopping basket before loading it up with doll outfits from the rack. Doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl, then, as long as you can use it as an excuse to go shopping.
We got a new sofa, so mummy has a place to sprawl during feeding sessions or general exhaustion. F went from being very excited about the new sofa to being very excited about her new sofa to being very excited about her new trampoline over the course of an hour. Once she'd split chocolate on it, she had clearly taken it for granted and stopped talking about it altogether.
Still hard to gage F's understanding of the baby. We read her a book about a new baby arriving in a family today, which she listened to with close interest. "Did you like that book, Freja?"
"That mummy had no clothes on," she said, rather concerned. Still on the clothes, then. Priorities all sorted.
James' beard remains well. The vistigial remnants of James are still lodged amidst its proud roots, and it hopes to soon move on to pastures new.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Incoming
So, yeah, a couple of posts back I alluded to the fact that V is pregnant again. Left it hanging there, actually, unmentioned since.
Part of this is natural hesitancy - you don't necessarily want to go enumerating unhatched chicks, so to speak, especially in the weird pseudopublic realm of the internet. I wouldn't want to have to explain it hadn't actually worked out on Facebook, leaving people no easy way to use their Like buttons.
The other part of it is being busy. This post is therefore All News, All the Time. Other than the first bit, obviously. And this bit, where I'm over-explaining it.
FAQ
How pregnant is V?
V is extremely pregnant. People keep stopping her in the street to tell her she is definitely carrying twins and wonder if she'd noticed. That, or they just can't squeeze past her, we aren't sure. Along with random joint aches, sleepless nights and savagely variable hormone levels, this means she is in a really super mood and would definitely like you to tease her mercilessly. After all, you don't really need both arms, do you?
When is it due, then?
The baby is due to arrive round the beginning of June, according to medical professionals, so not that long left to go.
However, V has a history of defying professional medical opinion, to the extend that any part of her medical history could be considered more like propaganda than factual reporting. This has included deciding on her own (new and more interesting) symptoms for illnesses and a marked immunity to advice. F was early, this new baby is already beyond huge, and it's not impossible it might turn up within the next month.
Does F know she's going to be a big sister?
Yes. She says hello to Mummy's Tummy in the morning and pats it cheerfully, in the manner of a medieval peasant touching a hunchback for luck. She is aware the baby will sleep in our room and sit in the new baby chair in the kitchen, but has been keen to stress that it will not get in her bed or be allowed to use her toys.
F has helped us pick baby names, by screwing her face up to our entire list of suggestions and shaking her head vigorously. "Well, what should we call it then?" we ask, and she shrugs and says "Baby" as though this were patently obvious to any but the most gurning simpleton. Similarly, the baby will be neither boy nor girl, "just a baby".
Are you all very excited?
Yes. Also quite stressed, occasionally in mild denial or frankly completely oblivious to what on earth the fuss is about. Second time in, there's been a marked drop in the levels of starry-eyed hope and a sharp increase in flashbacks to three am nappy changes. I can almost smell the meconium.
What are you doing to prepare for the new arrival?
Stressing, I just told you. Also buying things from Blocket (a second-hand site a bit like eBay), rooting around in the cellar for F's old clothes and wondering if vasectomies can be applied retrospectively.
What else is going on right now?
F has emerged from her Pippi Longstocking phase and is now into reading letters and making things with playdough. Mostly she makes caltrops, which (for those of you less au fait with fantasy wargear than I) are multi-spiked metal shards scattered on the ground and used to hobble charging cavalry. Playdoh is by far and away the most efficient material for the contruction of caltrops ever created by man. It also makes excellent, if rather eye-catching, patches for carpets, trousers, etc. Personally, I've gone off it.
V is somehow still working full time. I've passed another language exam and am now learning SAS-G, which is what six-to-ten year olds learn. At this rate, I'll be able to communicate at my mental age before the summer, because mentally I'm about twelve.
What the Christ is that on your face?
I have a part in a play about vikings, an adaptation of one of the Icelandic Sagas I love so much in fact, that starts rehearsal in a couple of months. I'm very excited about it, as I'll be performing in Swedish (probably). I auditioned in Swedish too, but decided that wasn't hard enough and translated the piece I did, famous Anglo-Saxon poem The Wanderer, specially for the occasion. I only wish I could accurately portray the looks on the faces of the audition panel as I hammered through it with my most enthusiastic foreign acting. I also had to dance (never pretty), demonstrate my acrobatic prowess (I did a handstand) and swordfighting skills. The latter against myself. With a mop.
Regardless of this impressively insane experience, my lazily untrimmed winter beard went on to swing me the role. I was asked to keep growing it and I'm now about eighty percent facial hair by body weight*, much of which is just inside the corners of my mouth. I keep seeing movement in my peripheral vision. When I whip round to see who's creeping up on me, I find my coiling sideburns, sieving the air for nutrients like the tentacles of a hungry anenome.
*The other twenty percent is a claggy accumulation of egg yolk, herring bones and the mockery of bypassers.
Part of this is natural hesitancy - you don't necessarily want to go enumerating unhatched chicks, so to speak, especially in the weird pseudopublic realm of the internet. I wouldn't want to have to explain it hadn't actually worked out on Facebook, leaving people no easy way to use their Like buttons.
The other part of it is being busy. This post is therefore All News, All the Time. Other than the first bit, obviously. And this bit, where I'm over-explaining it.
FAQ
How pregnant is V?
V is extremely pregnant. People keep stopping her in the street to tell her she is definitely carrying twins and wonder if she'd noticed. That, or they just can't squeeze past her, we aren't sure. Along with random joint aches, sleepless nights and savagely variable hormone levels, this means she is in a really super mood and would definitely like you to tease her mercilessly. After all, you don't really need both arms, do you?
When is it due, then?
The baby is due to arrive round the beginning of June, according to medical professionals, so not that long left to go.
However, V has a history of defying professional medical opinion, to the extend that any part of her medical history could be considered more like propaganda than factual reporting. This has included deciding on her own (new and more interesting) symptoms for illnesses and a marked immunity to advice. F was early, this new baby is already beyond huge, and it's not impossible it might turn up within the next month.
Does F know she's going to be a big sister?
Yes. She says hello to Mummy's Tummy in the morning and pats it cheerfully, in the manner of a medieval peasant touching a hunchback for luck. She is aware the baby will sleep in our room and sit in the new baby chair in the kitchen, but has been keen to stress that it will not get in her bed or be allowed to use her toys.
F has helped us pick baby names, by screwing her face up to our entire list of suggestions and shaking her head vigorously. "Well, what should we call it then?" we ask, and she shrugs and says "Baby" as though this were patently obvious to any but the most gurning simpleton. Similarly, the baby will be neither boy nor girl, "just a baby".
Are you all very excited?
Yes. Also quite stressed, occasionally in mild denial or frankly completely oblivious to what on earth the fuss is about. Second time in, there's been a marked drop in the levels of starry-eyed hope and a sharp increase in flashbacks to three am nappy changes. I can almost smell the meconium.
What are you doing to prepare for the new arrival?
Stressing, I just told you. Also buying things from Blocket (a second-hand site a bit like eBay), rooting around in the cellar for F's old clothes and wondering if vasectomies can be applied retrospectively.
What else is going on right now?
F has emerged from her Pippi Longstocking phase and is now into reading letters and making things with playdough. Mostly she makes caltrops, which (for those of you less au fait with fantasy wargear than I) are multi-spiked metal shards scattered on the ground and used to hobble charging cavalry. Playdoh is by far and away the most efficient material for the contruction of caltrops ever created by man. It also makes excellent, if rather eye-catching, patches for carpets, trousers, etc. Personally, I've gone off it.
V is somehow still working full time. I've passed another language exam and am now learning SAS-G, which is what six-to-ten year olds learn. At this rate, I'll be able to communicate at my mental age before the summer, because mentally I'm about twelve.
What the Christ is that on your face?
I have a part in a play about vikings, an adaptation of one of the Icelandic Sagas I love so much in fact, that starts rehearsal in a couple of months. I'm very excited about it, as I'll be performing in Swedish (probably). I auditioned in Swedish too, but decided that wasn't hard enough and translated the piece I did, famous Anglo-Saxon poem The Wanderer, specially for the occasion. I only wish I could accurately portray the looks on the faces of the audition panel as I hammered through it with my most enthusiastic foreign acting. I also had to dance (never pretty), demonstrate my acrobatic prowess (I did a handstand) and swordfighting skills. The latter against myself. With a mop.
Regardless of this impressively insane experience, my lazily untrimmed winter beard went on to swing me the role. I was asked to keep growing it and I'm now about eighty percent facial hair by body weight*, much of which is just inside the corners of my mouth. I keep seeing movement in my peripheral vision. When I whip round to see who's creeping up on me, I find my coiling sideburns, sieving the air for nutrients like the tentacles of a hungry anenome.
*The other twenty percent is a claggy accumulation of egg yolk, herring bones and the mockery of bypassers.
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Har du sett min apa?
We had a Pippi Longstocking month last month.
Bit of a departure for F. If she sees real people on the telly, she usually wrinkles her nose up and denounces them as being a 'mummy program', by which she means Dr. Phil, CSI Denver or whatever other generic daytime crap is chuntering on in the background while V does something else entirely.
But Pippi somehow passed this acid test, and we had several marathons of watching all of it back to back. And singing the theme song, which is now a bedtime staple. V called F 'my little firecracker' the other morning. "Ne-Hej!" said F loudly and angrily, as she does if you call her anything other than her proper name or do anything before she's told you to do it. "But Pippi is a firecracker," we explained, and then she grinned widely and accepted her new title.
Pippi, whose surname is actually Långstrump, is a peculiar rolemodel for children. F quite quickly understood that you shouldn't really jump up and down on top of tables, eat birthday cake for breakfast or jump off the edge of buildings. It's funny when Pippi does it, but not in real life. F realised this quickly because Daddy was extremely fast in giving serious explanations of gravity, nutrition and other science facts, as though Open University was using the show as a teaching example - "Let's just pause the action here and think about what Pippi is doing for a moment. If you consider the acceleration of a free-falling body in normal atmospheric conditions..."
It's a great bit of old telly, though, made in Sweden in the 70s with brilliantly duff special effects. Proper heritage stuff. The nearest equivalent I could think of was the old BBC Narnia adaptation, the one where Aslan was a motheaten sock puppet and the Beaver family was the Talking Animal equivalent of putting on Blackface.
F's favourite episode of the whole series was of course the one with the worst possible connotations in English. It's where Pippi, idly considering some of her treasures one morning, comes up with a strange new word. She decides to use this word for everything until she finds the thing it really means.
The word in question, sadly, is 'Spunk'. It's quite hard to stay deadpan when the episode is riddled with classic dialogue like 'all the best sweet shops sell spunk', 'oh, what a sweet little spunk!' (to a baby, as well) or 'Don't you know it's dangerous to drink spunk?'
But it's stay deadpan or explain to F why I'm sniggering, and that's a conversation for a later date. When she's, say, in her mid-thirties.
Bit of a departure for F. If she sees real people on the telly, she usually wrinkles her nose up and denounces them as being a 'mummy program', by which she means Dr. Phil, CSI Denver or whatever other generic daytime crap is chuntering on in the background while V does something else entirely.
But Pippi somehow passed this acid test, and we had several marathons of watching all of it back to back. And singing the theme song, which is now a bedtime staple. V called F 'my little firecracker' the other morning. "Ne-Hej!" said F loudly and angrily, as she does if you call her anything other than her proper name or do anything before she's told you to do it. "But Pippi is a firecracker," we explained, and then she grinned widely and accepted her new title.
Pippi, whose surname is actually Långstrump, is a peculiar rolemodel for children. F quite quickly understood that you shouldn't really jump up and down on top of tables, eat birthday cake for breakfast or jump off the edge of buildings. It's funny when Pippi does it, but not in real life. F realised this quickly because Daddy was extremely fast in giving serious explanations of gravity, nutrition and other science facts, as though Open University was using the show as a teaching example - "Let's just pause the action here and think about what Pippi is doing for a moment. If you consider the acceleration of a free-falling body in normal atmospheric conditions..."
It's a great bit of old telly, though, made in Sweden in the 70s with brilliantly duff special effects. Proper heritage stuff. The nearest equivalent I could think of was the old BBC Narnia adaptation, the one where Aslan was a motheaten sock puppet and the Beaver family was the Talking Animal equivalent of putting on Blackface.
F's favourite episode of the whole series was of course the one with the worst possible connotations in English. It's where Pippi, idly considering some of her treasures one morning, comes up with a strange new word. She decides to use this word for everything until she finds the thing it really means.
The word in question, sadly, is 'Spunk'. It's quite hard to stay deadpan when the episode is riddled with classic dialogue like 'all the best sweet shops sell spunk', 'oh, what a sweet little spunk!' (to a baby, as well) or 'Don't you know it's dangerous to drink spunk?'
But it's stay deadpan or explain to F why I'm sniggering, and that's a conversation for a later date. When she's, say, in her mid-thirties.
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